f anyone else. You should have seen
how I glared at Horner when he suggested, good-naturedly enough, that
Min should go round, by the way that the Dasher girls and the others
went, under his escort! How overjoyed I was when she politely declined
the offer, saying that, as her mamma was sitting up for her, she must
hurry home by the shortest way!

She looked like a little fairy, tripping along beside me through the
fresh-looking frozen snow, her dark dress and scarlet petticoat showing
out in strong relief against the glittering white of the roadway. The
moon was shining brightly, so that it was as light as day; and I could
see her face distinctly as she looked up into mine every now and then to
answer some remark. Her honest, lustrous, grey eyes sparkled with fun,
while a little ripple of silvery laughter came occasionally from the
rosebud-parted coral lips! We chatted merrily, exchanging notes
touching the enjoyments of the evening.

We gradually approached her door. I was telling her that, instead of
mere days, I seemed to have known her for years and could not affect to
treat her as a stranger.

She said that she looked upon me almost as an old friend already.

I asked her if she would let me abandon the formal appellation of "Miss
Clyde," and call her "Min?"

She said, "Yes."

I asked her then, ere the door opened, on wishing her "good-bye," with a
lingering hand-clasp, whether she would not call me by my Christian
name, too?

She gently whispered, "Frank"--so softly, so faintly, that the night-
wind, sighing by, could not catch the accents and bear the sound to
alien ears; but _I_ heard it, and my heart throbbed in a delirious
tempest of happiness; I lost my senses almost: my head swam in a
whirlwind of tumultuous joy: I was intoxicated with ecstasy!

"Good-night, Frank!" I heard her dear, sweet voice whispering, like
strains of music in my heart, as I went homewards. I seemed to feel her
warm violet breath still on my cheek. I could fancy I yet gazed into
the star-depths of her soul-speaking, deep, grey eyes.

"Good-night, Frank!" The words sang in my ears all night, and I slept
in fairyland.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

DOUBT.

"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change."

I had not yet had an opportunity of being introduced to Min's mother.

'Pon my word, you exclaim, this looks ve